There was no return address on the package, but the postmark showed that it was shipped from Seattle. Inside, Kellan found the amulet and a few other things: a stun baton, a tightly folded armored vest, some grenades, a survival kit, a certified credstick with a balance of a few thousand nuyen, and a computer-printed note. "This stuff belonged to your mother. Thought you might want it."

There was no signature, no indication of who might have sent it, but Kellan was smart enough to grab an opportunity when she saw it. She packed up her few possessions and got the hell out of her aunt's place within a week. She was finished with being told that she was nothing but a burden, when she was paying most of the bills. She was fed up with the service jobs where privileged corp-kids sneered at her or, worse yet, treated her like she didn't exist.

She swore to herself that she wasn't going to end up like her aunt, working in some dead-end job, struggling to make ends meet, and pouring what little nuyen she had left over into getting drunk so she didn't have to think about what a waste her life had become.

Kellan was going to make something of herself. That mean earning some cred, and for an undereducated kid with no legit prospects, there were only two ways to do that; selling herself on the streets, or working in the shadows. She had no intention of doing the former, and with the gear that came in the package, Kellan had enough of a stake to get a start as a shadowrunner.

She proved herself on a couple of runs in Kansas City and earned enough to supplement the nuyen she had and make some connections to get to Seattle, where the package had come from, where the real action was. Now she was here.

Lost in her thoughts, Kellan nearly walked into a guy standing at the railing above the dance floor. She turned, prepared to apologize or defend herself, but it wasn't necessary. She saw the vacant stare and the narrow cable that snaked from the chrome jack behind the guy's ear down to the little box he wore at his belt. He was a chip-head, living in a virtual world of recorded simsense played directly into his brain. He swayed and shuffled in a slow sort of dance that had nothing to do with the music in the club, lost in his digital fantasy. Kellan jammed her hands back into her pockets and resolved to pay attention. Enough thinking about the past. Kansas City was behind her. She was in Seattle now, and it was time to see if she could get down to business.

Off to the side of the dance floor was a crowded cluster of tiny tables and chairs made by dwarves with a sense of humor. A crowd pressed in all around them, and Kellan wove her way through toward the bar that curved along the side wall. As she angled her body to slide between two scantily clad orks, a strange figure near one end of the bar captured her attention.

It was a ten-meter-tall statue finished in chromed metal that looked vaguely like a Buddha, with a bald, bullet-shaped head and a big belly swathed in a long, belted robe, with sandals on its bare feet. Loops of neolux tubing were wrapped around the statue's arms and legs and a speaker in its belly blasted out the sound from the stage. The look on the statue's face wasn't the serene expression Kellan associated with Buddha statues, though. It was simultaneously sly and stern, as if the fellow was in on some secret joke. As Kellan watched, puffs of smoke jetted from around the statue's feet, catching the laser light from the scaffolding above. Glowing words played across the chrome surface, appearing and disappearing so quickly that they were almost subliminal. They slid across the shining metal, proclaiming, question authority, 93, and love is the law.

"Don't stare for too long," a voice cut through the noise. "The Beast has been known to hypnotize newbies who stare."

Kellan turned back toward the bar and realized she was standing right next to it. She had managed to make it through the rest of the crowd while entranced by the sight of the statue. An elf stood behind the bar, leaning a bit toward her, hands resting on the countertop, one holding a rag he was using to wipe it down. Like every elf Kellan had ever seen, he looked like a simstar: tall and handsome, his straight black hair worn shoulder length and tucked behind his pointed ears. He gave her a dazzling smile and tapped the bar in front of him.

"What'll it be?"

Kellan slid her credstick into the reader on the bar and tapped the display screen.

"How about a beer and something on the side?" she asked.

The elf kept smiling and raised one delicate eyebrow. "Sure thing. The beer is five nuyen, but the chaser will cost you fifty."

Kellan tapped the screen. "Done. You know a chummer called G-Dogg?"

Up went the eyebrow again. "Yeah, I know him. Why are you looking for him?"

"Business," Kellan replied curtly. "Is he here?"

He shrugged expressively. "I don't know. Haven't seen him around tonight, but G-Dogg is a busy guy, you know? He works a lot of clubs: Penumbra, Dante's Inferno. He might show up later on, or he might not."

Kellan suppressed a sigh. "Okay. Well, can you tell him I'm looking for him?" she asked. She tapped a few more keys on the screen, shooting her contact info to the bar's comp. "That's my number."

"Sure thing," the bartender said. He set an open bottle on the bar and popped a chip into the comp's port, tapping the screen to transfer her contact info. Kellan withdrew her credstick, and the elf removed the datachip and slipped it into his pocket as Kellan picked up her drink.

"If you need anything else," he said, "just holler."

"Thanks."

Kellan tasted her beer. It wasn't bad, but Kellan wasn't there to drink. She was there on business, but how was she supposed to get anything done if she couldn't even make a decent contact? She caught herself then, realizing that she was still thinking like a KC runner. Seattle's shadow community was huge-she shouldn't expect to find her target the first place she looked.

She'd come to the Underworld because she'd heard that G-Dogg was the man to talk to for a shadowrunner new to the Seattle scene; that he knew things and people who could set up an initial contact. Kellan's hand closed around the credstick in her pocket. The balance was getting pretty low. She needed to score some work, and soon, or else she was going to be back out on the streets. She didn't even have enough money left for a return trip to Kansas City-not that she ever planned on going back there. She was going to make it in Seattle no matter what, but to do that she needed to hook up with the right people.

That was when a troll lurched out of the crowd around the tables, looked around for a moment then focused on Kellan like a heat-seeker.

He was big and ugly, and made the bouncer out front look handsome by comparison. His head was low and squat, almost football shaped, with downward-curving horns on either side and one protruding tusk broken and capped with chrome. His domed head was shaved down to dark stubble and his big, pointed ears held numerous heavy metal rings. So did his bushy eyebrows and his broad, flat nose, which had a ring through it, like a bull. He wore a heavy leather jacket draped with chains from the shoulders.

"Hey, baby, haven't seen you around here before," he slurred in a deep, gravelly voice. He stood nearly three meters tall. Kellan looked him square in his stomach, a slight paunch that protruded over a wide, black leather belt. Even with the distance between them, his breath was strong enough to knock down a wall. He reeked like a brewery and staggered slightly, like he'd just drunk one.

"And you won't again," Kellan said, pushing away from the bar and leaving her beer there, barely touched. A massive, leather-clad arm blocked her way.

"Where you goin'?" the troll said. "You haven't even told me your name. I'm Horse." He smiled, showing her a mouthful of yellowed, broken teeth, and bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod, winking at her. "That's right, honey, it means just what you think."